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In an early indication of economic rebound following months of sluggishness, Bangladesh's overall imports increased around 7.0 per cent in the just-passed fiscal year.
According to the latest data from Bangladesh Bank (BB), the opening of fresh LCs or letter of credits, generally known as import orders, increased to US$70.72 billion in the FY'25 from $68.77 billion recorded in the previous fiscal year (FY24).
In FY'23, the volume of import orders was worth $67.63 billion.
The last fiscal year's import orders were $1.95-billion higher from that of the FY'24.
The volume of settlements against the import orders climbed up to $71.14 billion in FY'25 from $66.07 billion recorded in FY'24.
Seeking anonymity, a BB official says the inflow of foreign currencies continues rising in recent months because of significant growth in both remittance and export earnings-and this upturn bolsters the country's foreign-exchange reserves.
Because of the fact, the central banker says, the banking regulator keeps allowing imports of all goods by the commercial banks. "It clearly indicates that the economic activities rebound slowly."
According to BB, the gross forex reserves stood at $31.68 billion and $26.66 billion in BB and IMF's BPM6 calculations respectively until June 2025.
The reserves of foreign currencies have increased by around $6.0 billion from previous month's statistics when the figure was $25.80 billion and $20.54 billion in BB and IMF arithmetic respectively.
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